Brush

ABSTRACT

A brush comprising a brush body provided with a a plurality of drilled holes passing therethrough, a tuft or bunch of fibres being placed in each of said holes, said tuft or bunch being secured in said body, without any additional fastening means, through an effect of mechanical expansion and/or friction, the backside of said body being preferably covered.

United States Patent 1191 1111 3,818,534 Boucherie June 25, 1974 [54] BRUSH 1,370,343 3/1921 Montgomery 15/195 [7 nv or Ge ard non oucher e, 2,409,490 10/1946 Jobst 15/195 X Rumbeke, Belgium FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS [73] Assignee; FTffiTEGTP: Bb ikhr ie fifia firdi 634,161 1/1962 Canada 15/195 vennootschap, Izegem. Belgium 7 Primary Examiner-Peter Feldman [22] Filed' 1972 Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Richards & Geier [21] Appl. No.: 239,696

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data 57 ABSTRACT Mal. 30. Beiglum t A brush comprising a brush provided a a plurality of drilled holes passing therethrough, a tuft t I 1 a t I a I d 5/191 200 said tuft or bunch being secured in said body, without 1 1 o arc 300/31 any additional fastening means, through an effect of mechanical expansion and/or friction, the backside of 5 6] References Cied said body being preferably covered.

UNITED STATES PATENTS v A M 7 551,994 12/1895 OKeefe 15/195 1 Claim, 13 Drawing Figures 1,077,071 10/1913 HoItzman 15/176 PAIENTED M2 sum 2 or 2 Elm/l, N

BRUSH The present invention relates to a novel brush arrangement, more specifically to a brush having a body made or fonned of hard or relatively hard material such as wood, synthetic material or the like.

Up to the present time, as is well known, brushes have been made in different ways, a.o., by thrusting tufts or bunches of fibres through the brush body and fastening them by means of a wire, this fastening being carried out by hand; by gluing the tufts with their back ends against or in the brush body; or by fastening such tufts in said brush by means of staples or rods.

The latter process is used almost exclusively in industrial brush manufacture.

In present-day brush-making machines this necessarily entails the provision of a mechanism for cutting off a length of wire, for folding over this wire section and for inserting the staple thus obtained, together with the bunch of fibres, into the brush body, in order to fasten said bunch on said brush body.

It is well known that the operational reliability of brush-making machines mainly depends on the performance of said mechanism, the latter being almost the only source of trouble or malfunction of the machine, e.g., when wire ends get stuck in some part, or when a staple is incorrectly inserted into the brush body, or when the needle used for inserting the staple breaks, etc.

The present invention relates to a brush which can be manufactured by means of a conventional brushmaking machine, which however the aforesaid mechanism becomes completely superfluous, so that the operational reliability of such machine becomes very satisfactory its yield increases considerably, and such machines can be made at substantially lower costs than those applying the conventional brush-making method.

Another advantage of the brush according to the invention results from the fact, that the bunches of fibres are always fastened in the brush body in the same way, independent of any additional fastening means, thus ensuring uniformly reliable fastening of said fibre bunches in said body, which, as is well-known, is not always achieved in brushes of conventional manufacture, where the bunches are fastened by means of staples.

Another important advantage of the brush according to the invention is in fact that, owing to the omission of the staples which constitute an important cost component, said brush can be manufactured at substantially lower cost.

Moreover a brush according to the invention is generally composed of two parts, one of which is subject to wear; by replacing the latter part rather than the whole brush, money can be saved.

Another advantage of the novel brush, with respect to brushes using staples for fastening the fibre bunches, is found in the fact, that the thickness of the body can be considerably reduced, so that it can be manufactured of the same material at lower cost or made of plastic material at the same or lower cost.

All these advantages as well as others may be achieved in a brush according to the invention, which to this effect is characterized in that it mainly comprises a brush body of hard or relatively hard natural or synthetic material, said body being provided with a plurality of drilled holes passing therethrough, a tuft or bunch of fibres being placed in each of said holes, said tuft or bunch being secured in said body, without any additional fastening means, through an effect of mechanical expansion and/or friction, the backside of said body being preferably covered.

In order that the features of the brush according to the invention be more readily understood by way of an example, without limiting the scope of the invention, various possibilities of implantation of fibre bunches into a brush body will be described more in detail hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a cross-sectional view of the most preferred embodiment of a brush mas as according to the invention;

FIG. 2 shows the part indicated by'F2 in FIG. 1 at an enlarged scale;

FIGS. 3 to 9 show different variants of the arrangement shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 10 is a diagrammatical view of a complete brush made as according to the invention;

FIG. 11 is a sectional view taken along the line XI-Xl in FIG. 10;

FIGS. 12 and 13 show two variants of the arrangement shown in FIG. 11.

FIG. 1 illustrates one of the possible ways of fastening tufts or bunches of fibres in the body of a brush, this being the preferred embodiment of the invention, recommended for brush manufacturing as tests have established that the method used here is the simplest and most efficient of all.

In the brush body 1, at each point where a fibre bunch is to be planted, a hole with a variable crosssection is provided, said hole in this embodiment comprising a cylindrical part 3 and a conical part 4, the latter being preferably provided at the back-side of the brush body 1, in order that the bore 2 presents a smaller diameter at the back side than at the front side of said body 1, and a sharp edge 5 is formed at the back side opening, which is capable of exerting a pinching effect on the base of the fibre bunch.

In a brush body 1 provided with holes 2 of this nature, the tufts 6 are inserted in the holes 2 in the conventional way, by means of a needle, the diameters of said holes being of course adapted to the thickness and the nature of the tufts.

In this way such a bunch of fibres is thrust through the brush body 1, by means of the inserting needle, which may be such that it cuts locally through the edge 5, so as to push the loop or folded end of said bunch through and out of the back side opening. Then the needle is withdrawn, leaving the bunch of fibres 6 anchored in the brush body 1, by the friction of the fibres in the hole 2, combined with the pinching effect of the edge 5 on the base portion of the bunch.

In fact such fibre bunch 6, when pushed through the hole 2, is subjected to a relatively forceful thrust, whereby the fibres are stretched as they rub against the wall of the hole 2, whereafter, when released by the withdrawal of the needle, said fibre bunch relaxes owing to the elasticity of the fibres, and expands so as to press against the walls of said hole 2, as shown in FIG. 1. In this way it is obtained that the folded lower end of said fibre bunch 6 forms a knob-shaped protuberance 7 which prevents said bunch from being extracted from the brush body. In fact, from tensile tests it has been found that the force required for extracting fibre bunches, thus implanted is at least as large and in general larger than the force necessary for extracting bunches having been fastened, in the conventional way, by means of staples or rods.

FIG. 3 shows an embodiment in which the holes 2 are of conical shape so as to bring about exactly the same effect as the holes shown in FIG. 1, with the only difference, that in this case, owing to the taper of holes 2, the free ends of the fibres are permitted to spread open to a larger extent than is the case in FIG. 1. The fastening of the bunch 6 is however the same and equally efficient as in FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 shows an embodiment in which the holes 8 provided in the brush body 1 have a constant crosssection throughout their length, this cross-section being preferably circular. Such holes will be used only in particular circumstances for very resilient fibres, capable of forming knob-shaped protuberances 7 of sufficient thickness at the lower ends of the bunches.

FIG. shows an embodiment of a brush body 1 composed of two parts or layers 9 and 10, each layer having holes therein, 11 and 12 respectively, preferably of cylindrical shape, said holes having different diameters, in such a way that, in the same manner as described before with reference to FIG. 1, the bunch of fibres inserted through holes 11 and 12 are caused to form, below part 10 of the body 1, a knob-shaped protuberance 7 with a diameter substantially exceeding the diameter of the hole 12 so as to ensure adequate fastening of the fibre bunch in the brush body.

It will be understood that in this way bunches of fibres of any suitable material can be fastened in a brush body composed of one more parts, without the use of additional fixing means such as clamps or staples.

Nevertheless it will of course be possible, whenever required in special cases, to effect additional fixation of the bunches at the back side of the brush body, i.e., at the side where the knob-like protuberances are formed, either, when thermoplastic fibres are used, by melting said fibres and fusing them together so as to obtain an undeformable knob 7, or, when the fibres as well as the body are made of thermoplastic material, by heating the bunches so as to cause the knobs to fuse together with said body, or by coating said knobs 7 and/or said body with a thin layer of glue, or by coating the knobs only so as to harden them and to make them undeformable, or by coating said knobs with a film of plastic material, etc.

In a modified embodiment as shown in FIG. 6, the brush body is made of two parts 9'-10' provided with corresponding holes 11' and 12' respectively, the holes 11 in one part having the same or different diameters with respect to the holes 12 in the other part, said parts being joined only after the fibre bunches have been inserted, said par-ts then being fastened together with the corresponding holes somewhat out of alignment so as to produce a pinching effect on the base parts of said fibre bunches.

In the embodiment according to FIG. 7, the fibre bunches l3, fixed in cylindrical holes 8, are composed af animal bristles or vegetal fibres, which as is wellknown, are thicker at one end than at the other end. These fibres are inserted into the brush body in such a way, that the thick ends 14 are at the backs side of said body; in order to achieve this, the U-shaped folded lower end of the fibre hunch is thrust through the hole, by means of the insertion needle, far enough to permit the folded fibre ends to stand up again, whereafter the needle is withdrawn; these fibre ends then form a thick tail end whereby said fibre bunch is anchored in the brush body.

In the embodiment shown in FIG. 8 the back ends of a bunch of thermoplastic fibres 13 are heated so as to form a small protuberance 15 at the end of each fibre, the total cross-section of all of these protuberances being larger than the cross-section of the hole 8, causing the fibre bunch to be firmly anchored in the brush body.

In the embodiment illustrated in FIG. 9, the bunches of fibres 13, after having been inserted into the holes 8., are fastened therein by coating the back wall of the brush body, either completely of locally in areas surrounding each hole, with a layer of adhesive 16.

It will be understood that in all of the preceding examples the diameters of the holes 2 or 8 are chosen in such a way, that the fibres are compressed therein, so that in addition to the anchoring obtained at the back side of the body, said fibres are fixed by the effect of friction against the walls of the holes, so as to withstand extraction.

When certain materials are used either for the fibres or for the brush body 1, it may be possible by planting the fibre bunches after having enlarged the holed by heating, then permitting the brush body to cool, to make use of the shrinkage effect in order to fasten said fibre bunches in said brush body.

In this way the advantage is obtained, that with respect to brushes of conventional manufacture the thickness of the brush body 1 can be substantially reduced, as in this case the fibre bunches penetrate through the body completely. whereas in the case where staples are used to fasten the bunches, the latter are inserted in the brush body only to a certain depth, as sufficient material must be left behind each hole, in order to fix the staple therein.

This affords the important advantage that on the one hand, a very simple brush is obtained, and on the other hand, the thickness of the brush body can be kept so small, that it now becomes feasible to manufacture it of synthetic material, whereas the use of such material could not be considered before for competitive manufacture; the machines for producing such brushes can be much simpler than the machines hitherto used, and can be made to operate almost without trouble.

FIG. 10 shows a brush according to the invention, which is composed of two parts, viz. the aforementioned brush body 1 and a back part 17, the latter being secured on the back side of said body in any suitable way, e. g., by means of screws or the like, said back part 17 enclosing a cavity 18 to accomodate the protuberances 7. It is of course also possible to provide such a cavity 18 in the brush body itself, in which case the back part 17 can be flat.

FIG. 12 shows a variant, in which the brush body 1 is provided with lateral teeth or ribs 19-20 so that it can be slid into position through corresponding grooves in the back member 17, these parts then being secured to each other by suitable means such as screws or the like, said parts being suitably shaped so as to enclose and hide the chamber 18 from view. This, as will be understood, can be achieved in different ways.

Another variant is finally shown in FIG. 13, in which the depth of the cavity 18 is somewhat smaller than the height of the knob-shaped protuberances 7, when in relaxed condition, so that, when the parts 1 and 17 are joined together, said protuberances are compressed and slightly flattened, whereby the anchoring of the fibre bunches in the holes of the brush body is made even more secure.

It will be understood that the invention is by no means limited to the embodiments hereinbefore described and illustrated in the drawings, and that within the scope of the invention, such brushes can be made in any suitable shape and size and for many different applications.

What I claim is:

l. A brush, comprising a body having a plurality of transverse passages extending from a front face to a rear face of said body, each of said passages having a cylindrical portion and a conical portion, the smallest opening of which opens in said rear face, and a plurality of bunches of U-shaped fibres, each of said bunches being located in a distinct one of said passages, and each bunch having straight parts tightly extending through a passage and projecting out of said front face and bent parts bulgingly projecting out of said rear face, said bunches being secured in said passages without additional means. 

1. A brush, comprising a body having a plurality of transverse passages extending from a front face to a rear face of said body, each of said passages having a cylindrical portion and a conical portion, the smallest opening of which opens in said rear face, and a plurality of bunches of U-shaped fibres, each of said bunches being located in a distinct one of said passages, and each bunch having straight parts tightly extending through a passage and projecting out of said front face and bent parts bulgingly projecting out of said rear face, said bunches being secured in said passages without additional means. 